Sorry - I was confused: Helvetica is not in the ms-ttf collection;
this explains why it looks bad.  My advice when your intent is to
interoperate tih Microsoft users is to use Arial instead of Helvetica,
and Times New Roman instead of Times; it looks similar.  Or if you can
find a semi-free source of helvetica TTF files, let me know - I
couldn't find one in pkgsrc/fonts.

Arguably openoffice should substitute for a font it does have that is
close, choosing e.g. Vera Sans, or Arial if loaded, for Helvetica.  I
think it is trying to do this, but not entirely succeeding.  Perhaps
OO2 will be better. 

If you are working solely in openoffice, and don't need to
interoperate with Microsoft users, I'd use the Vera fonts.

RMS would probably tell you that proprietary fonts are a predatory
social system, and it's ironic that we can use fonts from Microsoft.
They aren't Free, but the big restrictions are no redistribution in
altered form (which seems to preclude distribution of binary packages,
but perhaps not) and no redistribution for profit or inclusion in a
product.

-- 
        Greg Troxel <gdt@ir.bbn.com>